Analyzing Teen Angst Films; "Rebel WIthout A Cause", "The Breakfast Club" and "The Perks Of Being A Wallflower"

The three films " Rebel Without  A Cause", "The Breakfast Club" and "The Perks Of being A Wallflower" are all films that represent teenagers and teen angst in the world we live in, through the lives of these teenage characters, and the journey's they go in while trying to 'find themselves'.The film "Rebel Without A Cause" is a 1995 film about a teenage boy named Jim, who is constantly in trouble, causing his family to move him around a lot, on top the fact that his Mother walks all over his Dad and they can never agree on what to do with him, and his grandmother constantly argues and tries overpower his mom. In the film, Jim goes to a new school and meets a new girl that he likes and try's to make friends with the crowd of kid's she hangs out with, while another teen seems to admire him and try's to be Jim's friend. Jim gets into trouble while playing chicken with the leader of the crew because the leader ends up dying and when he goes to try and tell a certain detective about what he did, the leader's friends try to find him and beat him because they think he's going to tell on them. The boy who admires Jim (a.k.a Playdough) tries to defend himself, Jim and Judy (the girls who Jim likes) from the bad guys and the police, but he ends up getting shot and killed. Now, behind this main storyline, the film focuses in on some of the teens backgrounds and the audience can see some pf the problems the teens have at home. For example, Judy craves attention from her father who won't give it to her and Plato's parent's basically left him with this nanny to watch over him, yet he craves that " mother and father" family relationship that is being unfulfilled in his life now. These characters experience teen angst and the source just happens to be their parents. Jim pulls the car stunt, which resulted in another kid's death and almost kills himself in the process, all because this is him trying to prove himself to those guys who are making him seem like a "Chicken". So, this represents this sense of need of acceptance or respect from others around teens and they feel that to earn this they must first prove themselves, so that could possibly be another source of teen angst.


In the film " The Breakfast Club", five teenagers all have detention on Saturday at their High School and they must spend a full school day there. These teens all display different signs of stereotypes in the film, Claire plays the popular pretty girl, John plays a delinquent and criminal, Andy plays the jock, Brian plays the smart, nerdy kid and Allison plays the weirdo girl with no friends. However their relationships with each other change throughout the film very drastically because they begin to see each other for more than their stereotypes. They represent a great deal of teens in High School having this "teen angst" period of time in their lives. The characters are at first true to their stereotypes and stick to them but as the movie goes on, they learn that there's more to one another than just what they appear to be on the outside and they are the way they are because of the adult role models they have in their lives. Many of the adults shown in the movie, talk down to the teens and try to belittle them in order to make themselves look bigger in the teens eyes. For example, there's one specific, famous scene in that movie where all the teens sit in a circle and sort of discuss their problems that they're going through. Brian is obsessed over getting straight "A's" and now that he failed one quarter of a class he can't get that "A" so he was thinking of commiting suicide because of it, but in the very beginning of the movie, the audience catches a glimpse of his home life and his mother yells at him to study; so it's like his parents are pushing him so hard that he's started pushing himself hard and when he can't achieve that he feels like he has no reason to live, because that's all his parent's seem to be interested in when it come's to him. Andy feels pressured constantly by his Dad to be the best and be a winner, so bad that it causes him to breakdown because he can't keep up with his Dad's demands from him and wants to do what he wants to but his Dad won't allow it. Those examples prove that the causes of their angst is from their other people that influence their lives, especially parent's because they don't exactly know who they are or want to be yet, and being constantly bombarded with pressure from those people, it causes that sense of teen angst.


The last film to be analyzed is "The Perks of Being A Wallflower". This film is about a teenage boy named Charlie who leaves middle school to enter the world of high school, and at first he doesn't seem to fit in but then he makes new unexpected friends, with a group of seniors that he goes through a year long journey with and learns to discover who he is to himself. Throughout the movie Charlie and his new friends are good representation of teenagers and displays multiple issues that real teens go through in life because Charlie has personal issues that stems from his childhood and the suicide of his best friend, Sam (one of his new friends) has been used by many guys and taken advantage of, and has even gotten a bad rep in her school, while her brother is dealing with his homophobia and his partners identification issues. The teens each have their own backgrounds on why they are the way they are and the film does a good job of displaying messages for a teenage audience, for example the quote "We take the love, we think we deserve." is a reoccurring message that the teens accept whatever they get and learn to just live with it, including this teen angst because they feel like they may deserve it. In the end of the film the moment they have in the tunnel with that special song they couldn't figure out, signifies that Charlie found himself and let go of his angst that was holding him back, so that he could be free from it and be himself.
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 In conclusion, all three films showed teen audiences and everyone else an insider to teenagers and why some people stereotype them as being the way they are. It all starts from some place and in that narrow time frame fro teenagers, things are changing about us physically and mentally. However, some have a hard time identifying with us and don't understand our angst as teenagers and what drives us, so movies like these three do a good job of explaining it. During this time, we teenagers have so many things to deal with, new and old, and only a short time frame to get things right so understanding yourself and who you are is a big step to ending the teen angst.